Departments within large enterprises operated in isolation and ultimately developed silos. These silos became condensed with passage of time and fattened with fodder from interdepartmental rivalries. Even supposed-to-be closely knit functions like sales, marketing and customer support had inadequate processes and systems which limited the ability of information sharing and collaboration within an enterprise. This gave birth to an age of information silos which prevented people from sharing the same business or customer related information, primary reason for this being that information happened to reside in different parts of the business. Having said that, the last couple of years have witnessed a paradigm shift in the way information and, in particular, customer information is managed. The practice is often referred to as Customer Information Management or CIM.

From a definition standpoint, CIM can be understood as the practice of systematically collecting information about individual customers and making it available to staff within a company to help them make better informed decisions regarding interactions with the customer. Evolution of a CIM practice, to a great extent, has been made possible with the development of custom tools and methodologies. This has helped advance information collaboration and facilitation techniques.

CIM development and evolution stimulated the competitive landscape by being a differentiator and USP for a few large enterprises. And the eventual scenario that has emerged is that most large financial services and even manufacturing institutions invest heavily in building CIM processes and systems to effectively manage their customer information. The effort in doing so not only gives the direct benefits of increased customer loyalty and enhanced customer satisfaction but also gives these enterprises a launch pad or a platform to offer unparalleled and distinguished customer experience.

Enterprises today are equipped to take decisions on the fly and adjust strategies on the run. Gone are the days when it took weeks of effort for collation of data points and plotting information on success of a customer campaign executed. Today one can measure the effectiveness of promotions almost in real time environment.

Typical Benefits from establishing a CIM practice

• Improved product/services
• Informed decision making
• Operational efficiencies through increased workforce productivity
• Customer insight, inputs for effective sales and marketing campaigns
• Improved customer interactions with consistent and personalized service across channels
• Enhanced customer experience, loyalty and relationships
• Integrate customer information across group companies
• Increased opportunities for cross-sell and up-sell for existing or new products and services
• Mapping information metrics to business metrics and quantifying them
• Increased revenues

5 Easy Steps to develop a CIM Program

• Make an inventory of sources and repositories of information residing in departments, corporate hierarchies, and embedded     in a variety of systems.
• Identification of data collection options and data champions.
• Developing methodologies to transform the collated data into meaningful and useful information.
• Understanding existing techniques that gives the desired efficiency to design the to-be Customer Information System.
• Strategy for optimal distribution of customer information throughout the enterprise using point- of-service application, management information systems or a decision support system.

Challenges in Executing CIM Program

There are some essential challenges to executing CIM programs. To start with, it could be a complex task to get sponsorship and buy-in from all departments for supporting an enterprise-wide initiative such as this. At the same time, considering the large chunks of customer data, the centralized archival and management may become an expensive, ineffective and inefficient process. Tasks such as robust reporting and access engine requirements to manage significant cost reductions and efficiencies are also difficult. It is also difficult to exact customer data from various sub-systems and environments and sharing aspects to allow for transformation of legacy systems. Dissimilar functional objectives, departmental or divisional boundaries, along with obligations on data ownership and value all add to hindrances in the data collection and maintenance process.

Approach towards an effective CIM Program:

• Realigning internal data-sharing practices.
• Enhancing data processing capabilities.
• Developing tools for common access to customer data.
• Implement a customer-centric data warehouse.
• Aligning customer information needs with internal data-warehouse plans.
• Developing a conceptual To-Be model for an enterprise wide customer information system.
• Define a solution reflecting your current situation and prioritized requirements

Difference between CIM & CRM

Customer Information Management (CIM) and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) share an interesting relationship. CIM is more to do with the informational aspects of the CRM: how to collect, collate and make available that information. On the other side, CRM goes beyond that and adds a strategy for handling the information in such a way so as to enhance the customer experience, and ultimately benefit the bottom line of the business.

Most enterprises till date view CRM as a technology solution, not as a fundamental change in how they manage and use customer data. As a result, they have not focused on developing the required CIM capabilities to leverage CRM technology effectively to drive customer loyalty, customer profitability and new customer acquisition.

Privacy and data security system: Compliance Concerns

One of the primary functions of CIM solution is to collect and archive information about customers. When gathering data as part of a CIM solution, a company must consider the desire for customer privacy and data security, as well as the legislative and cultural norms. For instance, EU Data Protection Act, US Gramm Leach Bliley Act, Bank Secrecy Act, Australia National Privacy Principles and similar laws have stringent provisions on how customer information should be managed even within the same enterprise, and special care is required using third party services to process and manage such sensitive information.

Some customers prefer assurances in terms of privacy notices that their data will not be shared with third parties without their prior consent and that safeguards are in place to prevent illegal access by third parties. A CIM control environment must ensure the following:

• Security and confidentiality of customer records and information
• Protection against any anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such records; and
• Protection against unauthorized access to or use of such records or information which could result in substantial harm or inconvenience to any customer.

CIM is relevant to companies that want to offer impeccable customer service along with a secure and up to date service.